Poprocks and Coke
by WHENICOMEAROUND
Summary: If you eat poprocks and coke, your stomach will explode. Jate.
1. I'm Not Afraid Of Anything

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, I was dying to write something again, but I had no new ideas. I ended up listening to "International Superhits" over and over hoping to get some inspiration knocked into me. I ended up listening to this one song over and over, which was, needless to say, Poprocks and Coke.  
And then some inspiration got knocked into me, so I walked around for two days, going "I don't care if you don't mind, I'll be there, not far behind." over and over and over, and I was like "If I don't write this story now I am going to be singing this damned song for the rest of my life." I haven't fully plotted the entire story yet. But I'm starting to. Also, I usually write my Jate fics from Jack's point of view, but this time I decided to do Kate. We'll have some fun with this- Kate seems like the crazy thinker type sometimes.  
And if she's not, then now she is.

ALSO: I don't know where Kate is from. I don't know if she has brothers or not. This is a fanfiction. I am making it up.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Lost. I don't own poprocks or coke or anything except this story. So there.

DEDICATION: To Allison and Jessa, who are die-hard Jaters just like me. Also, to Mrs. Frey ("So I'm a Jater? All right!") and LOFT (Lost Obsessed Fans of Tribble). Also, to Miss Tribble, who puts up with the five of us talking about Lost every Thursday. And to JJ Abbrams, all hail the creator of Lost.

-POPROCKS AND COKE-  
-BY WHENICOMEAROUND-  
-CHAPTER ONE-

If you eat poprocks and then drink coke, your stomach will explode, Casey told Kate. Kate looked up at her older brother and raised her eyebrows.

"I'm serious," Casey said. "if you eat poprocks and coke, your stomach will explode!"

Seven-year-old Kate laughed. "I'm not afraid of anything." she said.

" 'I'm not afraid of anything'." the childrens' mother quoted from her rocking chair on the front porch with a laugh. How often she'd heard that. How often her little daughter reminded her that she wasn't afraid of anything.

And she well believed it. A farm in the middle of Montana was probably not the best place to raise a little girl if you didn't want her to turn out like Kate. Kate spent the days following her older brother everywhere, picking up snakes and mice that they found in the field and bringing them back to the house, where Kate would excitedly show her mother, who would shout.

"Katherine Marie!" she would cry, and Kate would have to bring her new pet back outside.

From spiders to heights, there was no doubt about it- Kate wasn't afraid of anything.

Kate looked up at her twelve-year-old brother and grinned. "Dare me to?"

"Yes, I do!"

Kate tore open her package of poprocks and poured the tiny pink crystals onto her palm. She looked up at her brother. He nodded.

"If you explode, I'm not cleaning up the pieces." Casey said flatly. Kate smiled and looked at her mother, who was rocking baby Shawn. She smiled at her daughter.

"Go on, Katherine. You said you aren't afraid." said Casey bossily.

All in a rush, Kate poured the poprocks into her mouth and washed them down with a long sip of coke. She let out a cry as the tiny candies exploded down her throat.

"See! See! You're gonna explode!" Casey was yelling. Kate felt the candies go all the way down her throat and into her stomach. Her heart was pounding and her head was racing...

"Mom, I'm going to explode!" Kate cried. She was close to tears now- she still felt them popping and exploding inside her. It burned her tongue and throat. "MOM!"

"Oh, Katherine, don't be ridiculous. Your brother is just trying to scare you." said her mother. "You aren't going to explode."

From that day forward, Kate was afraid of one thing and one thing only- poprocks and coke.

Since that fateful afternoon, Kate hadn't eaten a single poprock or drank even a sip of coke. She was too afraid. Even years later when she knew she wouldn't explode, she lost a taste for them. She never drank coke or ate poprocks again.

Kate had never again experienced that feeling of crackling, popping, and snapping in her stomach, and she had to say she missed it. It was a thrill. It was fun to teeter on the verge of thinking you were going to explode. But she never experienced it ever again. 

Until she met him. 


	2. My Name's Kate

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks much for my reviews, you guys, I love you all. )  
Last week my cousin AJ broke his arm (again). I told him it was because he doesn't drink enough milk, all he drinks is soda. Which made me think about that stupid song again, which made me want to write this.  
AJ and me are the same age (actually, six months difference). Ever since we were little I've always been taller than him.  
Up until a month ago, and now he's exactly five foot five, while I am a measly five foot four. Big deal, I say, but he thinks it is.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own LOST. The end.

-POPROCKS AND COKE-  
-BY WHENICOMEAROUND -CHAPTER TWO-

"Excuse me!"

Kate turned around and saw the speaker- a man, who was crouching on the floor, not wearing a shirt.

"Can you sew?" he asked her.

Kate swallowed. "I sewed the drapes in my apartment." she told him.

"Great. Can you do this for me? I'd do it myself, but I can't reach..." The man indicated a cut on his back. He held up a string and needle.

"Oh, no. I can't do that." said Kate.

"Yes, you can, you said you've sewn before!"

"No, that's different. When you sew drapes you use a sewing machine, I'm not good at sewing people."

The man tried to smile. "Please, help me?"

Kate sighed and nodded reluctantly. She bent down beside him and took the needle from him.

That's when she felt it.

Kate wanted to gasp and drop the needle, but she resisted because she didn't want to hurt the man. But she had only felt what she was feeling now, standing, crouching there beside this man she didn't know, holding a needle and touching his bare skin once before.

And that was nearly twenty years ago, when she had eaten poprocks and coke.

Her head and her heart were racing. She was having trouble breathing and more trouble swallowing.

She knotted the string and the man said, "Thank you."

"No problem," she said. She stood up, then helped the man stand. Even though he didn't look like he needed it, she longed to touch him again.

"I'm Jack," he said.

"Kate," she said in a small voice that did not belong to her. "My name's Kate." 


	3. Every Time I Look For You

AUTHOR'S... ER, ONE COULD ARGUE WITH USE OF THE WORD "NOTE": Today I was wearing my Green Day shirt and my Global Studies teacher goes, "Hey, Green Day!" and we get into a long-winded discussion over their best album (Dookie, 1994, Reprise Records). It is nice to have a teacher with good musical taste, which almost makes up for my idiot Biology teacher, who makes it a point to say my name at least seven thousand times a day. ("That's a good question, Maria."... "Good job on the homework, Maria."... IT NEVER ENDS!)

DISCLAIMER: How many times must I say this::cups hands around mouth: I DO NOT OWN 'LOST'!

QUOTE: "Every time I look for you the sun goes down once more... will the last one out please shut the door?" -blink-182

(Yeah, I don't own that either.)

-POPROCKS AND COKE-  
-BY WHENICOMEAROUND-  
-CHAPTER THREE-

Nearly a month and a half later, Kate still had that poprocks-and-coke feeling about Jack. But now it was different.

Because she didn't only feel it when she touched him. She felt it every time she looked at him. And every time she thought about him. And every time someone said the word- "Jack".

We set our scene in what most call "the hatch". Locke is tying Kate's hands together with a length of rope.

"What are you doing?" she demands in a hiss.

"What's best for all of us." Locke replies. He slips a knife into her pocket and Desmond hold open a door.

"Put her in here." he says.

And with that, Locke throws Kate into this unknown room and slides the door shut.

Livid, Kate attempts to adjust her eyes to the darkness. She is furious with Locke. She is furious with Desmond. But most of all, she is furious with herself for not listening to Jack, and going into the hatch anyway.

After many fruitless attempts Kate finally manages to cut her hands free and untie the rope binding her feet together. She tries to slide the door open with no avail.

Kate leans up against the door and in the process flips a lightswitch. She then gets a clear view of what kind of room she is in.

It is a pantry.

Now, after spending a month and a half on an island living off nothing but pork and mangoes, one gets hungry.

And when faced by actual food, one may want to eat it.

Kate smiles and looks at all the products around her. For a month they'd been starving, when right here, right below them, there was enough food to feed all of them for a month and more?

Her eyes fall on a small black cardboard box. Her heart skips several beats.

Because what do you know.

Poprocks.

I need to try it, she thinks. I need to do it. I need to-

Kate looks around. She knows there had to be soda somewhere. And she was right- on a bottom shelf were several dozen cans.

She smiles as she tears open the package and the can. She hadn't had poprocks or coke in twenty years. And she felt the adrenaline rush every day when she talked to Jack, but she wanted to do it again. Just for kicks. Just to see if it still felt the same.

The same way she had done it twenty years ago, she pours the candies and soda into her mouth and swallows all in a rush. Her stomach pops and fizzles and her heart races, and she loves it.

Poprocks and coke.

It tasted the same way it had tasted when she was seven years old.

Smiling, Kate looks up. A vent. She tries to jump for it but she is too short. So she stacks two crates on top of each other and moves the vent. She climbs through the opening.

Kate crawls through the air duct, searching for she wasn't even sure what. She stops when she hears a sound: a loud sound. Music.

She continues crawling, a bit faster than she was before, towards the light at the end of the tunnel- another vent. She peers through it and sees a circular room.

And standing in the center of the circular room, pointing a gun at nothing in particular, is Jack. 


	4. Save Kate

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Lost. The end.

-POPROCKS AND COKE-  
-BY WHENICOMEAROUND-  
-CHAPTER FOUR-

"Jack," Kate shouts. "Jack!"

But Jack can't hear her over the loud music. He makes to touch the keyboard of a nearby computer, but the music stops abruptly and Locke appears, saying, "I wouldn't touch that."

"Where's Kate?" Jack demands, pointing his gun at Locke.

Kate breathes out. Knowing that Jack wanted to know where she was made her very happy.

"I'm here, Jack!" she longs to shout, but she knows something bad will happen if she does. So she keeps her mouth shut.

"She's fine," Locke assures him. "She's okay."

Kate wants to scream, "You would know, Papa Cueball!", but again she doesn't.

Jack doesn't give up still. "Where is she? Where the hell is Kate?"

Then a gun appears beside Locke's head. "Put the gun down." says a voice. Jack doesn't recognize it and Locke doesn't dare turn his head, but Kate knows that it is Desmond. She can see him from where she is crouching in the vent.

"Where's Kate?" Jack repeats.

"Put the gun down!" says Desmond, a bit more roughly. Still, Jack does not.

"I'm not putting anything down. Where the hell is Kate!"

Aggravated, Desmond sends a bullet into the ceiling, missing Kate by inches. She exhales deeply.

Desmond chooses this moment to show his face. Kate and Locke aren't surprised but Jack opens his mouth and whispers, "You?"

"Me," says Desmond with a wicked grin. "now put the gun down, or your buddy here gets it."

"Where is she?" Jack demands. He sounded like a broken record; Kate loved it. "Where's Kate?"

Kate could no longed stand it. She kicks the vent in front of her and it falls to the floor. She pulls the knife from her pocket and flips it open.

"Kate!" Jack and Locke say at the same time. Only Locke says it like it's a question- surprised. And Jack says it like he's excited- relieved.

Kate catches Jack eye and smiles. He winks at her.

"You're okay." he says, knowing it's true without even asking. "You're okay?" he asks, just to be sure.

"I'm fine." Kate says. Desmond points his gun at Kate.

"Nice of you to join us, Kate." he says. "Now get out of here."

Jack pulls Kate's arm and pushes her behind him. "She's not doing anything you say."

Kate's arm was still tingling where Jack had touched her. "Yeah."

"Shut up!" says Desmond, sending another bullet into the ceiling. Kate and Jack duck and Jack puts out his arm to protect her. Kate feels as thought the poprocks and coke are going to come right back up. But she knows that Jack will do what he can to save her, and that made her extremely relieved.

Desmond moves forward; Jack cocks his gun, ready to do whatever he needed to do to save Kate and himself; and maybe Locke, depending on how things went.

Desmond advances on them. Kate was getting nervous... she holds out her knife, ready to attack...

Then an alarm sounds from the distance and Desmond says to the group at large; "No one move."

"We're not doing anything you say." says Jack in a bold voice.

"Jack," Locke begins, but Jack won't let him speak.

"Stay where you are, dammit!" shouts Desmond, shooting the ceiling again.

Jack looks at Kate. She is unable to do anything but stare back.

Jack looks back at Desmond and nods.

Desmond crosses the room and sits down at the computer. He begins typing. As he types he mumbles under his breath what he is entering; "Four, eight, fifteen, sixteen, twenty-three, forty-two."

He presses "execute". The alarm stops and he looks up at the wall expectantly. Then, a timer, which had previously read "3:47" now read "108:00".

Jack looks from Kate to Desmond and says, "What was all that about?"

"Just saving the world," he replies.

A/N: Papa Cueball is what my Dad calls bald people. I found this in a book once and he thought it was funny. Now every time we watch LOST we call Locke Papa Cueball. It is highly amusing, the things that go on in my house. Don't know when I'll post this again, but chapter two of Holiday should be up today if we're lucky. As for Brain Stew... uck. I have no ideas, so don't even ask. PS: The other day in Math Allison had The Notebook (ha) so I couldn't write after I finished my test. So being the short-attention spanned person that I am, I began playing with Ivan. Did anyone else realize that 4 + 8 + 15 + 16 + 23 + 42 108? I found that mildly amusing. That's all for my rambling for now. 


	5. It's Not Impossible

DISCLAIMER: I don't own LOST for the quadrillionth time. If I owned LOST then I would own Sawyer, then I wouldn't need fanfiction. Ha, ha.

QUOTE: "This one time, I drank a lotta soda, and I ate a lotta soup, and when I threw up, it was black and chunky."- my cousin Lee being his usual descriptive self.

-POPROCKS AND COKE-  
-BY WHENICOMEAROUND-  
-CHAPTER FIVE-

Kate watches Jack pace back and forth. Desmond gets up from his seat at the computer and says, "Right."

"No. Not right." says Jack. "Tell me what's going on right now."

"Just saving the world." Desmond replies again. But Jack, being the Man Of Science Locke had accused him of being, wouldn't stand for it.

"Saving the world. With a computer? And a freaking code? Tell me what's going on RIGHT NOW!" Jack shouts.

Desmond doesn't reply. Kate isn't sure what to do. Locke is merely standing, watching, looking amused. For some reason this ticked Kate off. She wished he would leave; he was creeping her out.

"How did you get down here?" Jack demands. "How did this happen? What happened? What's up with this computer and this whole damn thing... WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"

Kate knows that Jack is getting aggravated now. So she stares Desmond down, and seeing this, he answers the question.

"It... it was three years ago!" he shouts. "I was on a solo race around the world, and my boat crashed here on this island. And then Kelvin came!"

"Kelvin?" Kate asks weakly. This whole thing is just strange.

"Kelvin, yeah, Kelvin!" Desmond shouts. "He comes running onto the beach, 'hurry, hurry, come with me.' He brings me down here. The first thing he does, 'cause it's beeping already, he puts in the code, he pushes the button, and it stops!"

Kate looks at Jack, who is wearing a look of disbelief, and Locke, who is still looking amused.

" 'What was that all about?', I say." says Desmond. " 'Just saving the world.', he says."

"Saving the world?" Jack repeats.

"His words. Not mine." says Desmond. "Then I started pushing the button too. And we saved the world together, and that was lovely. Then Kelvin died." he paused for optimum dramatic effect. "So here I am. All alone. Saving the world."

"But that doesn't make any sense," says Jack. "It's impossible."

"It's not impossible." Locke and Desmond say in unison.

"It is too." Jack and Kate say at the same time.

There was a moment of dramatic silence; then Jack says, "I'm out of here. Kate, you coming?"

"Yeah." she says. And with a final glance at the computer, Desmond, and Locke, Jack and Kate started walking out.

"Well, I'm staying." says Locke.

"That's wonderful for you." says Jack. "But I plan to be alive a few more weeks, if I'm lucky. So you stay down here and save the world, Locke. I'm going up there." He pointed to the ceiling.

And they left. 


	6. DARE

DISCLAIMER: I don't own LOST or anything remotely like it, except my outrageous Jate fics, which will probably never happen on the actual show, so they sort of do not count as "remotely like".

QUOTE: "But where do them Chinese kids dig to?" -HOLES

-POPROCKS AND COKE-  
-BY WHENICOMEAROUND-  
-CHAPTER SIX-

Kate follows Jack aimlessly, not really knowing where she's going. He leads her down a corridor and turns right. Then Kate spots the pantry.

"Jack," she says with a grin. "I have a dare for you."

He turns around and looks at her. "What?"

She smiles. "Come with me."

She leads him to the pantry and he says, "Oh, my goodness."

Oh yeah, Kate thinks. He hasn't seen this yet.

"Yeah," she says.

Jack walks around the room, staring at everything in it.

"So what's the dare?" he asked.

Kate blushes. Oh. She had been so busy staring at him she'd forgotten what she had said.

"Have you ever had poprocks?" she asks him in a shy voice that does not belong to her.

Jack says, "Yeah. Who hasn't?"

Kate smiles. She produces a package from a nearby shelf. Then she gets a can of coke from a bottom shelf.

"Kate," Jack begins, but Kate interrupts.

"When I was seven, my older brother told me that if you ate poprocks and coke, your stomach would explode. And I wanted to prove that I wasn't scared."

"So you did it." says Jack with a smile. He knew Kate too well to know that she would turn down the opportunity to prove she wasn't afraid of anything.

"Yeah." she says.

"And did your stomach explode?" Jack wants to know.

"No." says Kate. "Almost. But no." she grins at him.

Jack looks from the poprocks in his hand to Kate. He breaks into a smile. "Dare me to?"

"Yes!"

Jack pours the tiny crystallic candies into his hand and opens the can of soda. He smiles at Kate.

"Go on, Jack." says Kate in that same bossy way Casey had said it so many years ago. "Do it."

Jack swallows the poprocks and coke the same way Kate had, all in a rush.

By the look on his face, Kate could tell that he felt the same way she did. A few minutes later, Jack smiles.

"So?" says Kate eagerly. "What does it feel like?"

He grins and says, "Nothing I've never felt before." 


	7. When The Music Stops

AUTHOR'S LITTLE RAMBLING BIT AT THE BEGINNING: "When The Music Stops" is an Eminem song. Today I watched 8 Mile so he's sort of in my head. Such a great movie. My favorite part is when he's rapping about the trailer park. Ha!

DISCLAIMER: "Lost" belongs to ABC, JJ Abbrams and Stephen Williams and all those other directors, there are too many. "When The Music Stops" belongs to Eminem. I am not a director or a rapper, but I am pretty good with a yo-yo, so I guess it evens out.

QUOTE: "So I'm signing CD's while police fingerprint me..." -Sing For The Moment

(I guess I'm in a rap mood today. Hey, you may say poseur, but I say nonconformist. :) )

-POPROCKS AND COKE-  
-BY WHENICOMEAROUND-  
-CHAPTER SEVEN-

Jack was wandering around what the survivors had come to call "The Hatch". They said it just that way, as if it were capitalized. The Hatch.

He could hear Desmond was playing some odd record somewhere in the distance. Desmond played a lot of odd records. When Charlie was down here it was all rock. But Desmond listened to strange music, mostly old, one-hit wonders, mostly that same song he'd played that first time Jack had come down there- "Make your own kind of music, sing your own kind of song..."

Jack found himself humming along with Desmond's record. He shook himself and smiled.

"You're going crazy, Jack," he told himself.

Suddenly, the record stopped. But Jack still heard music. Someone was singing softly.

He heard running water and the soft voice continued. He turned the corner; the water stopped and so did the singing.

Kate blushed and wrapped a towel around herself. "Um..." she said.

"Hey," said Jack. Seriously. What else was he supposed to say? But somehow "Hey" sounded stupid.

"Hey." said Kate.

"You, uh-" he wished he would stop saying "uh" around her. "you took a shower?"

"Well, I wanted to see if it worked." she said. She smiled and picked up her clothes. She kept dropping things. In her head she kept hearing, poprocks and coke, poprocks and coke.

Shut up, Kate thought to herself. Stop it.

Poprocks and coke, poprocks and coke-

"You could use one." said Kate to Jack, eager to stop her thoughts.

Jack grinned. "Maybe a little later."

Kate smiled, then walked towards him, towards the exit. "I, uh-"

"You're a good singer." Jack told her. He didn't want her to leave.

"Oh." Kate blushed again. "Thank you."

She started to walk out. "Um," she said. "see you later."

Jack smiled. He was ripped apart inside. He wanted her to stay. He wanted to stay here with Kate forever.

"See you," said Jack.

Kate left. Jack left too.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! Jack was screaming inside his head. It was like being two different people. Inside, he longed to be with Kate, to hold her, to tell her everything was going to be okay. Outside, he was shy and quiet and nothing like his inside self.

Oh, God, Kate was thinking. He is so great. Why can't I control myself? Why am I exploding inside? Why am I so stupid? WHY HIM?

Kate smiled and bit her bottom lip. But he did say I was a good singer, she thought happily, and that thought satisfied her. 


	8. Never Said Goodbye

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Saw the school production of "The Laramie Project" for the fourth time today. Such an amazing play. For once, I'm so glad I didn't make it. Almost. Because watching it was great.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE1:** Sorry it took so long to update, but we've been having computer trouble at my house. Apparently someone successfully flipped the entire image on the screen upside down.

Plus, I had to update this at school because some parts needed to be italicized (spelling?)

But hey, better late than never.

**ALSO:** Nobody ask me about Brain Stew, ((:cough cough ALLISON:), because I am nowhere near ready to post.

**DISCLAIMER:** Ugh. Once again, I do not own LOST. Or the line that talks about Tom's smile. I took that from "The Laramie Project".

**-POPROCKS AND COKE-**

**-BY WHENICOMEAROUND-**

**-CHAPTER EIGHT-**

Kate sat on the beach day after day, wishing her broken heart would heal. Try as she might, she couldn't forget Tom.

It wasn't that she remembered him because she still loved him. It was that she remembered him and all he'd done with her and for her. And how did she repay him?

Now he's dead.

Kate was upset. Childhood memories and even more recent ones were flying through her mind, and she couldn't get his smiling face- always smiling. Kate remembered how he would walk into a room and practically fill it with his smile. He was just... just... there. He smiled at everyone. He never had a problem with anyone.

Kate wiped a tear from her eye. He's dead, she told herself. He's dead and he's not coming back. So stop thinking about him. Thinking isn't going to bring him back.

But the one thing Kate could never forget was the last moments of his life.

_"Slow down, Kate, slow down!" he was yelling. _

_"I can't! They're right on us!" Kate cried. She swerved and slammed into a telephone pole... _

_"Kate!" _

_"Tom?" she screamed. "Tom!" _

But it was too late; Tom was gone.

And Kate had never said goodbye.

She didn't go to his funeral. She didn't have the guts. She stayed home and cried herself to sleep.

She spent the next three years on the run. She only kept in contact with her brother Casey, and she made him swear not to tell her mother where she was or what was going on. Kate was as good as dead to her mother.

_"What daughter?"_ she'd ask when people said something about Kate_. "I have no daughter." _

Back in reality, someone tapped Kate on the shoulder.

"Kate." she spun around; it was Sun.

Kate tried to smile, but Tom's face was still fresh in her mind. "Hey." she found herself saying. Sun had lost her wedding ring that morning. Kate had tried to help her look for it, but they had found nothing. So Kate smiled and tried to be nice.

Sun sat down beside Kate and sighed.

"No luck with the ring?" Kate said.

Sun sighed again. "I don't know why I'm so upset. It is only a thing."

She looked at the horizon. "It's been four days." she said quietly.

"You know, Michael said that it might take up to two weeks to find a current. Jin is-"

"He's not okay." said Sun, turning to look at Kate. "I'm sick of everyone saying that he is!" There was a moment of silence after this; Kate had never heard Sun speak so rashly.

"Claire found the bottle," Sun whispered, hanging her head. "with everyone's messages in it. I buried it."

Kate looked at Sun. This was her chance. "You buried it?" she said.

"Yes."

"Where?" said Kate, getting excited but hiding it.

Sun, looking confused, led Kate back to the spot where she'd buried the bottle. She dug it up. When she did, Kate said, "Can I see it?"

Sun, who was still confused, handed over the bottle.

Kate began searching through all the notes frantically. No, not this one. Not this one either.

"Kate, those are private!" said Sun. Kate ignored her.

"What are you doing?" Still, Kate ignored her.

Finally, Sun pulled the bottle away. "Kate, stop!"

Kate crumpled up the note she was currently holding- apparently, it was Steve's- and wondered what on earth she could say so that she didn't have to say Tom's name out loud.

"I..." she said. "I never said goodbye." She started crying silently.

"Sawyer?" Sun whispered.

Kate wanted to laugh. Sawyer! Who cared about him, anyway? Sawyer? That was just plain funny.

But she pretended that yes, yes she cared about Sawyer and she hadn't said goodbye (Like it mattered). Then she looked away and spotted something gleaming in the sand.

"Sun," she said, smiling. "look."

Sun looked and picked up her wedding ring. She smiled and laughed and put it on her finger. "Oh, thank you, Kate." she said.

That night, once everyone else was asleep, Kate found her letter, which she'd written to her brothers.

-----

_Dear Shawn and Casey, _

_I miss you guys a lot and I know I haven't talked to you, Shawn, in the longest time, but I do miss you and I do think about you every single day. I'm sure you saw on the news when I was caught. I'm also sure Mom was real happy when she found out I was still alive. _

_I just want you to know that the plane I was on from Sydney to LA crashed, but I'm okay. Today four people who crashed with us are setting out on a raft to get help. Once you get this letter, I will probably be fine. _

_I love you both and miss you very much, and with any luck I will see you very soon. Visit me in jail. _

_Love, _

_Kate _

----

She smiled. Tears came to her eyes.

She had found a pen earlier and brought it with her. She now pulled it out of her pocket and turned the note over.

_Dear Tom,_ she wrote.

_I know that you're never going to read this, but I love you and you are my best friend in the world. Now you're gone and I hate myself for it. _

_I think about you every day and I miss you and kick myself in the ass for what I did. I wish it hadn't ended like that. I wish it hadn't ended at all. _

_Just letting you know I miss you and I know I never said it when you died, but good-bye. _

_Goodbye, Tom. I will never forget you. _

_Love,_

_Kate_

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**A/N:** Maybe you think Kate's crazy for writing a letter to a dead guy, but hey, I write letters to Kurt Cobain all the time. So maybe Kate's crazy and I'm crazy too. Ha.

I was just trying to make the best out of what probably was a Skater moment last episode. Hey. Maybe I'm right. Let's live in denial if I'm not, because I will jump off the Empire State Building before Kate tells Sawyer she likes him.

Hands off, Kate. Sawyer is MINE.

Ha!


	9. Cleaning Out My Closet

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here we go. This is the climax chapter. And this chapter is going to be like the last one- from both Jack and Kate's point of view instead of just Kate's.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Lost. (:Groans from peanut gallery:)

-POPROCKS AND COKE-  
-BY WHENICOMEAROUND-  
-CHAPTER NINE-

Here goes nothing, thought Jack. He was going to do it. He was going to tell Kate what he really felt. He was cleaning out the skeletons in his closet.

Here it goes, thought Jack as he marched towards the beach where Kate was sitting alone. He knew that was where she was. That was where she always was lately. Sitting alone on the beach. Jack always wanted to say something to comfort her, but he never quite knew what to say.

That was always Jack's problem with Kate. He never knew what to say.

Kate wasn't sitting at the beach in her normal spot, though. He heard sobs. He could tell by the sound it was Kate.

"Kate?" he said quietly. It was dark out.

She didn't hear him. She cried on. He could hear her sobbing, "Why? Why did you leave me? I loved you!"

Jack's heart nearly stopped. Was she talking about who he thought she was?

"Why did you leave me here all alone?" she sobbed.

Jack slowly walked away. He walked on and picked up speed. He walked faster and faster until he was running. He stopped at the edge of the sand, where waves were crashing on the shore.

Then, he started crying.

Jack hadn't cried since his father died. But then it was more out of guilt and grief. Now he was heartbroken. Jack never cried over a girl before. Mostly he would just sit around and pretend it didn't bother him. He wouldn't let himself cry.

But Kate... Kate... why did it have to hurt so much to think about her?

Jack put his face in his hands and cried.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack woke up on the beach the next morning. He looked around and saw Kate sitting next to him.

"Hey," she said with a smile. She held out a cup. "I brought this for you."

"Thanks," he said. He knew he must have looked a terrible mess, but Kate didn't care. He knew it was true- she was in love with Sawyer and she missed him.

"Why are you on the beach?" Kate asked him. "I looked for you last night, but you were here. You, um... looked a little busy." she said.

Jack felt his face heat up. He hoped Kate couldn't see it.

"I cried yesterday too. Sometimes it's too much, living, you know? What made you cry yesterday?" said Kate.

How was he supposed to say it? How was he supposed to tell Kate that he was crying over her?

She went on. "I... I was thinking about... about Tom. You know. My... who... he... died." she looked away.

Jack looked up at her. "Tom?" he said.

"Yeah," said Kate. She sounded weird. Then she closed her eyes and bit her lip. "I can't believe I killed him, Jack." she whispered. "He was my best friend."

She put her hand over her face. She was crying, Jack knew. This made him miserable.

But somehow, knowing it wasn't Sawyer...

He was happy.

He pulled Kate closer to him and put his arms around her. She continued to cry.

"Kate," he whispered. "it wasn't your fault."

"It was, Jack, it was!" she sobbed. It was like all her bones had disappeared from her body. She felt like rubber. She couldn't move. All she felt was Jack's arms around her and the familiar fireworks and explosions in her stomach.

Poprocks and coke.

He let her cry. He just wanted to be there for her.

Kate cried for about two minutes straight. Then Jack said, "Kate. I cried because of you last night."

She looked up at him. Her eyes were red and puffy, but to Jack, she still looked as beautiful as always. "What?" she said.

"Because of you, I cried. I think about you all the time. I never forget you. You're never far from my thoughts. You know why, Kate?"

Kate sniffled. "Because you feel like you just ate poprocks and coke." she whispered.

Jack smiled. "Yes." he whispered. "That's exactly it."

"Does that mean you love me?"

Jack smiled. He pulled her arms away from her face and she turned around. Then he put his arms around her and kissed her.

And Kate's question was answered.

A/N: About time, if you ask me, but I had to drag it out a bit. Speaking of which, who saw "What Kate Did"? We've got a new name for the ugly skater moments that punctuate all the Jate- "It's not skater, it's Jate angst!". Pathetic, I know, but I'm a Glass-Half-Full type. AND AT LEAST THEY FINALLY KISSED, YIPPEE! 


	10. Since I've Been Loving You

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Last chapter, so of course I have to go on and on just a bit. Heart you all for reading this far. Please put up with me for just another minute, then we'll get this over with. I have tried poprocks and coke before, and needless to say I didn't explode. But it's fun, that feeling of exploding and stomach-turning and whatnot. 

**AUTHOR'S DRIVEL (VOCAB WORD!):** As I've said before, I like lots of different types of music. This chapter is named after a Led Zeppelin song. All I can say is, genius.

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own Lost. Or any of the songs that I ascribe (ANOTHER VOCAB WORD, MRS. FREY!) in my chapter titles.

**DEDICATION:** This chapter is dedicated to Giuli and :VOLDEMORT, since both of you really are idiots and I wish :VOLDEMORT: would hurry up and ask you out already so that you'd stop being all, "You're not lying to me, are you, Maria?". Heart you anyway, Spaniel. ---Maria, your Fairy Godmother

**QUOTE:** "Act your age, not your shoe size." -Some dork from Bio.

**-POPROCKS AND COKE-  
-BY WHENICOMEAROUND-  
-CHAPTER TEN-**

Kate was rocking back and forth on the beach, not sure what to think or how to feel. She only felt the same old poprocks and coke feeling in her stomach. It wasn't getting old. She wasn't bored of it. In fact, she loved it. There was nothing she loved more than feeling like she was going to explode.

Kate smiled, closed her eyes, and rocked back and forth some more. She hummed softly under her breath.

He loves me, she thought. He really loves me.

And it wasn't that platonic, noncommittal type of love people used all too often- "I love that color, I love this, I love that."- No. It was that real, true, poprocks-and-coke type of love.

She was happy, thinking this, and she would rather die next to Jack on this island than live forever anywhere else. Kate was feeling very at peace with the island and possibly the entire world when suddenly she felt a hand on the back of her neck and a voice said, "Someone looks very happy right about now."

Kate smiled and turned around to face Jack. He was grinning. He sat down next to Kate, who smiled at him.

"What's going on?" she asked him.

"Absolutely nothing, which is just the greatest. No people to save. No fighting, no crazy French women stealing babies, no dynamite, no nothing. Just me and you, and the beach." he fell back on the sand and sighed. "Just me and you, Kate."

"And everyone behind you, right?"

Jack didn't turn around. "They aren't watching."

"You never know."

Jack grinned; so did Kate.

"Jack."

"Yeah?"

"How long have you loved me?"

He smiled. "As long as we've been on this island. Maybe longer, because, let me tell you, when you walked on that plane..." he trailed off. Kate smiled.

"Since as long as I've known you." Jack finished.

Kate smiled, because that was exactly what she had predicted he'd say.

"Kate?"

"What?"

"How long have you loved me?"

Kate said, "Since I sewed your back."

Jack smiled.

"So, about the same then."

"Yeah, I guess so." said Kate. They both sounded sort of stupid, but neither one of them cared. They always sounded stupid around each other, just now it was a more comfortable type of stupid instead of a Gee-I-Wonder-If-He/She-Knows-Yet type of stupid.

Without any warning, Jack leaned forward and kissed Kate. When he finished, she smiled and said, "What was that for?"

"What else?" said Jack, and Kate laughed.

He loved to hear her laugh.

They sat in silence for a few moments after that. Then Kate broke it by saying, "You're really dumb, you know."

"What?" said Jack, not really expecting that at all.

"How could you possibly think that I ever liked Sawyer?"

Jack smiled and Kate laughed again.

"I don't know." he said honestly.

"You really are an idiot," said Kate, but she was smiling.

Jack broke into a smile too. "But I'm YOUR idiot," he said, and he kissed her again.

Kate smiled, "I know," she said, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

**----------------------EPILOGUE----------------------**

Later that week, Sawyer, Michael, and Jin returned, though none of them would answer questions about where Walt was or why they were back. A few days after their reunion, Michael set off into the woods to look for his son. He never came back.

James Ford (Sawyer) learned to live with disappointment, though he admitted to Hurley that he had loved Kate. He acted all mopey and pissy for about a week and a half, then he realized that he'd missed his chance, and even if he'd gotten that chance Kate didn't want to be with him.

Claire Littleton and Charlie Pace raised Aaron as if they were married; when Aaron learned to talk, he began to call Charlie "Daddy". In the end Claire decided that had they been in the real world, they'd have gotten married anyway, so Charlie became Aaron's unofficial father.

Sun and Jin ((I don't know their last name)) forgot all about their stupid fight when Jin came back to the island. About a year later, the survivors realized that they weren't going to be rescued, and Sun had a baby- a little girl that she named Juniper. Jin learned to speak English before the baby was born, though his daughter grew up bilingual.

Sayid ((I don't know his last name either)) ended up finding a radio in the hatch and sent out a distress call, though no one ever came to help. Sayid became frustrated and eventually gave up.

Shannon Rutherford died not long after Sawyer, Michael, and Jin returned. Rose claimed she died of a broken heart, but Jack found several pill bottles missing from his medical bag. He didn't mention this to anyone but Kate.

John Locke spent his last days in the hatch, pondering over the mysteries of the computer and the whole electromagnetic theory. Jack flat-out refused to press the button, and so did several others, so within several weeks Locke was the only one who ever did it. He grew depressed and confused, eventually passing away down there. When Jack came down to check on him, he heard the alarm and ran to the circular room with all the technology. Locke was lying facedown at the table with the computer, unconscious. Jack did what he could to try and save him, but Locke died. Jack let the timer run out. Nothing happened.

Hugo Reyes (Hurley) remained his cheerful self. Eventually he told Charlie the entire story about winning the lottery, and Charlie believed him. Over time, Aaron began to call him "Uncle Hurley".

Jack Shepard came to terms with reality and realized that they would never get off this island, and he was okay with that, because he had Kate. He knew he wasn't perfect, and neither was she, which was probably why they loved each other so much.

Kate Austen never ate poprocks and coke again in her life, but she never forgot how it felt. Every time she looked at Jack, every time she heard his approaching footsteps behind her, every time she thought about his smiling face, she felt like she'd exploded.

And she'd never have it any other way.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** So, how about that? I liked it. But I'm the author, my opinion doesn't matter much, and I'll go for anything Jate, so I really don't count at all. Thanks for reading! -WHENICOMEAROUND


End file.
